Tell Her She's Not Alone
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Spoilers for "Stardust City Rag". It's not easy to comfort someone over a screen light years away.


Tell Her She's Not Alone

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _Star Trek: Picard_

Copyright: CBS

/

"_She was holdin' on so tight  
But why do we still have to say goodbye?  
She's all alone tonight  
There's nothin' I could do to make it right_

_Is it ever gonna be, ever gonna be brighter?  
Is it ever gonna be, ever gonna be easier?_

_Hold her tonight  
Oh, God, would You hold her tonight?  
'Cause I'm not there to stay close  
Keep watch, tell her she's not alone  
Hold her tonight"_

\- For King And Country, "Hold Her"

/

"Did you get my message?"

"Yes, I heard. Oh, Seven … " The Doctor shook his head and shaded his face with his hand, hopelessly lost for words.

It was part of his programming to accept death with equanimity, but not this. Icheb's death was a disgrace to the science of medicine, a perversion of everything the Doctor believed in. It didn't even make sense_. _Sedating the victim would have made the procedure so much simpler. What kind of a monster was this Bjayzl anyway?

"I need your help," said Seven.

"Anything."

He leaned forward, meeting her eyes aver the comm screen, feeling - for the millionth time – how trapped he was by the technology that kept him alive. During his first years on _Voyager_, he had learned of necessity how to make his presence felt over a screen, but with his mobile emitter, he'd almost come to take movement for granted. If he could only talk to Seven in person – to hold her, wipe away her tears, even just put a hand on her shoulder …

But thanks to the anti-synth paranoia that had taken over the Federation since the attack on Mars, here he was, stuck in a tiny office in the basement of Starfleet Medical, while she was in a shuttlecraft out by the border, lightyears away.

She wasn't taking care of herself. Her eyes were shadowed, her hair dull, and the skin around her ocular implant was red and irritated, which meant it was out of alignment. She had a portable regeneration unit with her – he'd designed it himself – but she didn't seem to be using it.

If he were there with her, he could at least scan her, and tell her exactly how long she ought to rest. Not that she would listen, knowing her; Icheb was just the same, he always …

Correction. Icheb would never miss a regeneration cycle again.

"I need," said Seven, in a voice as cold and hard as on her very first days on _Voyager,_ "All the information you have about the virus in Icheb's DNA."

"I … I beg your pardon?"

He'd been prepared for a lot of things – making an appointment to see her; sending her copies of his old holoimages with Icheb in them; referring her to a counselor (although that was unlikely); even launching a plan to steal his mobile emitter back from the Daystrom Institute so he could join the Fenrys Rangers alongside her. But he hadn't expected this.

"Are your audioprocessors malfunctioning?"

"No, no, I heard you. I just … The anti-Borg virus? In heaven's name, _why_?"

"Because that should make his implants easier to trace on the black market. When I find her clients, I'll find Jay."

The smile on her face, thin as a razor's edge, was one the Doctor had never seen before. It frightened him.

"You don't mean to say you're going after this person by yourself?" A black market dealer. A butcher of former drones. The sort of person who would befriend you, earn your trust, then turn around and torture someone you loved. "Have you lost your mind?"

"What do you expect me to do – report her to Starfleet?" She scoffed. "I did. Icheb's colleagues on the _Coleman_ know everything, but they refused to investigate."

"Well, it _is_ only a small science vessel, isn't it?"

"So was _Voyager_," she snapped, and really, nothing else needed to be said.

In that moment, the Doctor missed those days in the Delta Quadrant with a fervor he'd never have believed was possible. Captain Janeway had never made a choice based on whether something was expedient, or politic, or whether her superiors would approve. She'd only ever asked if it was right.

Janeway, now an admiral and one of the few voices of conscience among Starfleet's leadership, had protested the end of the Romulan aid mission almost as strongly as Jean-Luc Picard had done. She was proud of Seven, Chakotay, and a few other officers who had left Starfleet to help the abandoned colonies, and supported them in all the subtle ways she could.

The Doctor knew, however, that there were some things their former captain wouldn't condone. He knew exactly what she would say if she were here.

"Revenge won't bring Icheb back, you know."

"No," she agreed grimly, "But it will end a threat to those like us."

"It won't bring you peace."

"Peace became irrelevant for me when I fired that phaser."

The phaser that had killed Icheb. The Doctor tried to imagine it and couldn't. Seven seemed to be struggling with the memory as she spoke. Her eyes lost their focus, and for the first time, her voice began to waver and her mouth to tremble.

"I called him my child," she murmured, as if to herself. "That was the only time … all those years and I never said it before."

"He knew." The Doctor blinked away holographic tears. "I promise you, he knew."

Icheb's entire medical history on _Voyager_ went through his mind. Seven had been there every time: assisting with the surgery, donating nanoprobes, standing by his bedside and, once, unconscious on the next bed while the Doctor transferred Icheb's cortical node to her. They had argued about it so fiercely beforehand, each willing to give their life for the other. If that wasn't the definition of love, what was?

Everything those two had suffered couldn't be for nothing. They had lost Icheb, but he couldn't bear it if Seven lost herself as well.

"Is there nothing I can say to dissuade you?"

"Nothing."

"Then I'll send you all my data about the virus … but only on one condition."

"Name it."

_Take me with you. _The words were on the tip of his tongue. _Let me go with you, anywhere, whether it's the Neutral Zone or the end of the galaxy. _For all he knew, she might even take him up on the offer. The Rangers could surely use a doctor who didn't sleep and was impervious to weapons fire.

But no. Seven _was_ a Ranger; he mustn't forget that. She was safe within Federation borders as long as her not-quite-legal activities couldn't be proved, but if she got caught stealing a valuable piece of Starfleet property (because that was all he was, these days), well … "XB's" were considered not much better than synths these days. It wouldn't take much for her to end up in prison – and _that_ didn't bear thinking of.

At least one of them should stay free.

"Call me," he said instead. "Write to me, whenever you can. Tell me everything, whether you think it's relevant or not, whether I'll approve or not. Whatever you do, please don't shut me out."

Seven looked away, her face half in shadow in the dim lighting of the battered old shuttle she used. The bones of her face seemed to stand out more sharply than he remembered. He could almost imagine how she would look as an old woman, with a beauty as stark as a birch tree in winter.

Then she turned back to face him, looking thirty years old again, and her eyelashes were wet.

"Of course I will." She wiped her eyes under the guise of pushing her unbound hair out of her face. "Doctor ... I hope you know … "

"Yes?"

She hesitated, struggling for words, and he held his breath in anticipation.

"Be careful," she finally said. "If Bjayzl decides to target the rest of us, you will be at risk as well."

_The rest of us,_ he repeated to himself. "Understood."

"If I lost you … "

"You won't," he hurried to say, trying to joke, spreading his arms wide to indicate his office. "It's not as if I'm going anywhere."

"You will." She said it firmly, as if she could will the fact into existence. "You will leave that place one day, Doctor. I promise."

Before he could reply, she ended the call and the screen went dark.

_Ah, but Seven,_ he thought, _I do leave this place, more often than you realize. _

_As long as you're out in the galaxy, so is my heart._


End file.
